#nine dots

[lovelylarkgamin]

Outward (2020)

Gameplay: ⭐️⭐️⭐️❌❌

Style: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️❌

Story: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Multiplayer: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️❌

Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️❌

Playable on:

PlayStation (4 & 5)

Xbox (One & Series X/S)

Window

Stadia

Online co-op: Yes

Local co-op (split-screen): Yes

Developed by a small studio called Nine Dots, Outward is unique in that the CEO Guillame Boucher-Vidal approached the game with the intention of getting it to work as a split-screen game, which is not a very common goal these days. The CEO, like me, bemoans the fact that so many great memories in our childhoods were playing with family or friends side-by-side and that games these days don’t really make a lot of efforts to make that possible. Not only did the development team have to make some sacrifices to split screen to work, but relatively low budget of a small studio meant they could not support elaborate cutscenes and lip synching in most modern games. All that to say, this game has more of a classic rpg style, which is good for me, a long time fan of D&D, KOTOR, Diablo, and other long-running rpg franchises, but if you find yourself easily frustrated at older games, maybe skip this one.

Now to the meat of the matter. I have mixed feelings about this game, as you can probably tell from my rating. Buckle up; I’m going to talk about what I didn’t like first, and then we’ll talk about what I did like. Just know that I am very aware of the limitations of a small studio and think people should keep that in mind when talking about games like these. I’d rather have small studios around instead of just a handful of big monster studios anyway, so I want them to succeed. You should too. We get more fun and variety that way, so look at small studio games with a forgiving lens, please.

Through that lens, I find the inability to level up in any way in this game utterly baffling. There are no skill trees, merely the ability to attain better equipment over time and recipes for food, potions, weapons, armor, etc to equip your character better. There are ways to adjust your stats to allow for magic, but it’s a trade off that sacrifices health and stamina in exchange for mana. You can purchase skills from trainers to improve health and stamina a little bit, but I could see someone going through a generous portion of the game before ever figuring that out. The studio claims to want to avoid crunchy video game mechanics with this approach, but in the end, I found it crunchier than a skill tree in a pause menu. Maybe that’s just me, but for a game trying not to be crunchy, there is a whole lot of trying to hunt down this person or that person trying to improve your character in some small way only to learn you were doing it wrong from the beginning. Be prepared to die frequently, whether from enemies, sickness, or cold/heat, and make sure you are strategically stashing money and unnecessarily items to cut down on theft from your unconscious body or over encumbrance.

All that being said, the game is stunning with vibrant colors and a unique and interesting art style. Whatever sacrifices the studio made paid off, and the local co-op is incredibly satisfying. You may get downed frequently, but with the ability to revive each other, that ceases to be crippling. Also, each time are downed teaches you something that you do better next time. There is a very thorough foundation of lore under the storyline, and that makes the world fun to explore. Honestly, it gives the feeling of playing WoW or something like that, and for a small studio, that’s pretty impressive.

I have my gripes, but overall, there’s a lot to like about this game. Make use of the Outward Wiki and the advice of dedicated players you can find literally everywhere. They help you avoid some of the frustrating aspects of the game. Also, don’t buy recipes, look them up. Save your money for cooler stuff.

Happy gaming!

[cherbearsz]

when shadow says to nine that "it was all about power", he says it like he's familiar with that motivation, like it was once shadow's goal as well, that he too had been reprimanded with the same accusation. and we know in the games that shadow has sought power! whether it be a "jewel containing the ultimate power", or destroying the earth, or black doom weaponizing his grief, confusion, and rage for conquest.

shadow's insistence on nine's villainy and his eagerness to be the one responsible for nine's defeat - all directed at a character he barely knows - switches from somewhat disproportionate to entirely justified when you realize shadow does in fact know nine, nearly as well as he knows himself. because nine IS shadow - a shadow without support, a shadow alone and discarded by everyone, a shadow whose maria came back only to dash his own hopes and dreams apart.

[super-who-locked-me-in-here]

Pieces of media my mom has seen and the popular MLM ships in them that she doesn't think are gay:

MCU - Stucky (note that she does get a kick out of Stony stuff and she believes wholeheartedly that those two hate fucked in a not-filmed scene of Avengers 2012 so this is not about her thinking "oh Captain America is so straight-laced because he's the ideal American man" or anything)

MCU - Poolverine (she's fully aware and accepting of the fact that both Logan and Wade are canonically queer characters but she thinks all the flirting Wade did with Logan in the newest movie didn't necessarily mean anything because "he talks like that to everyone". Side note though: while she believes Wade should be with Vanessa, she does think that Logan can and should shoot his shot with Wade after Vanessa inevitably dies since he and Wade are both immortal. It's just that she thinks Wade should get his happy ending with Vanessa first.)

MCU - Lokius ("Mama have you ever seen a man fix another man's tie like that" "No but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen! I wouldn't know though; it's been like 15 years since I worked a corporate job.")

Sonyverse/Marvel - Symbrock ("They literally have a symbiotic relationship. That doesn't make them gay." So I showed her the comics where Eddie calls Venom "love" and gives birth to Venom's babies and she said "Fine you win but please never show me alien man birth ever again."

Supernatural - Destiel ("They're like Steve and Bucky! They're brothers in arms! They've been through hell and back together!" Note that she only watched through season 5 but she does know about a lot of their later interactions because I told her about them)

House M.D. - Hilson ("Dot I watched that whole show and they were never anything more than good friends" "What about when House admitted to thinking about Wilson during sex? What about that whole episode where they pretended to be gay for each other to prove a point to a neighbor and Wilson proposed? What about that whole episode where Wilson had to furnish the apartment and House told him not to let a woman tell him what to do but Wilson let House tell him what to do? What about the whole ending?" "Why can't two men just be close enough friends to joke about that stuff with each other?"

Real life - Me and my best friend of the same gender orientation who I've kissed multiple times and have had a requited crush on for years that neither of us have ever persued for logistical reasons (I literally used me and this friend to try and prove my mom wrong about Stucky and Destiel. I asked her if she thought me and this friend were like brothers and she said yes with a straight face)

Sherlock - Johnlock (to be fair this is the BBC ship name, but she doesn't think any iteration of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson are the slightest bit gay. "They're business partners and roommates.")

Our Flag Means Death - BlackHands (Should go ahead and say that I'm not really a BlackHands shipper myself; we both really enjoyed Stede and Ed's romance in the show. BUT it takes so much away from Izzy's character and his development if you don't acknowledge that he was jealous of Stede and in love with Ed, at least a little. My mom thought Izzy was just an extremely loyal first mate.)

Also, for the record, I'm not trying to call my mom out as homophobic. I'm queer and so are two of my siblings and she's very supportive of us. There are gay romcoms she enjoys like Our Flag Means Death and Red, White, and Royal Blue. The reason I'm making this list is because I think it's really funny how she doesn't understand the concept of queerbaiting (not that all of the above listed ships are queerbaiting). She thinks things are either explicitly straight or explicitly queer (whether it's gay, lesbian, bisexual, etc) and cannot comprehend the idea that some character relationships are deliberately pushing the boundaries of straight friendships into queer relationships to get more minority viewers and I think her explanations are funny.

[izzymalec]

Shadowhunters 1x12 Malec

[bitchfitch]

Tbh this is more me bitching about once again wasting money on a game I probably won't be able to finish due to cripple-itus but we're going to pretend it's a serious discussion on game design.

So to preface: my vision is fucked. Irrevocably. Like get discounts on insurance levels of fucked. But games, even very difficult ones still Often very doable and fun.

One of my favorite genres is "white dot goes on a combat platforming adventure" Ie metroidvania/soulslikes that either Are hollow knight or heavily inspired by hollow knight

And I just want to compare a Good white dot, against an extremely irritating white dot.

This is yi. He is an edgy cat boy. he is a good white dot.

No matter the amount of bullshit on screen or the background color, you can always quickly find the white dot that is Yi or his lil robe.

This Bo. They are a bad white dot. they look like they'd be a Good white dot, what with the really clear silhouette of their ears and strong red markings

This is Bo in the game.

Bo breaks the number 1 rule of being a white dot: they end up the same color as the background because neat light effects which do look Great, were more important than the ability to find you're guy while doing minute long don't touch the ground style parkour sessions.

Like Hollowknight and Nine Sols, Path of the teal lotus uses a lot of forground and back ground layers to create a very nice sense of depth. However the foreground layers frequently completely cover the lower half of Bo's body. often making them a light colored dot on a noisy light colored back ground.

The fact background and play ground elements are often the same color does not help. Nor does the fact the camera is . Bad. it just is. It zooms in and out in the middle of a screen making it extremely difficult to keep track of an already hard to follow character in a setting where. losing track of your guy means getting sent back to the beginning of a tedious boss fight or a prolonged parkour session (which to be clear, would be good if you could track your player character. not the bosses though. They are. bad. they need to attack faster, have more than 2 attacks, or at least have a fraction of the HP they do. so you're not just standing around waiting for them to decide to start up another attack to open a vulnerability window.)

And I'm just going to say it, Someone on the team knew the game had this issue. Because they gave you a fix that doesn't work. You can adjust brightness, contrast, and saturation. None of these fix the issue of Bo disappearing. The game is so blown out that no combination of settings produce a result where bo is consistently visible, and also you can tell whats background and what's something you can stand on.

Anyways Demos are an accessibility feature, and when they're not available don't be lazy like I was and just pirate it. If the devs aren't going to give you a way to check if their shit is busted or not, you'll just have to find one yourself.

Anyways anyways tldr absolutely Gorgeous game, Should've been a silent animated movie instead because it's nearly unplayable and the translators either did a Really bad job, or the writers just didn't get why the jokes they're copying were funny

[blujaydoodles]

Can you hear it hanging on the wind? Can you feel it underneath your skin?

[doctor-octiddius]

at the end of the day why shouldn't i... why shouldn't i make gifs of julian bashir getting kissed...

[flickering-nightfall]

i am going to scream

[lunar-wandering]

snakes. why did it have to be snakes.

(Season 5 Lego Set Spoilers!! bewareeeee)

Macaque has been freezing up, or bailing out, of their most recent fights against the latest villain threatening the world.

Word Count: 2k

Read on Ao3

Wukong wasn’t really paying much attention, at first.

He was leading the charge, the others walking behind him, Macaque trailing along at the very back of the group, as he seemed to like to do. Whether that was him keeping his distance from Wukong in general, because he didn’t want to be in a leading position, or because of some other innane reason, Wukong didn’t know, and didn’t particularly care. It didn’t matter to him.

Mei was ranting about their newest villain of the week. At the same time, Macaque had started snarkingly chiming in from his position at the back- saying something cocky for sure. …Probably. Wukong had honestly stopped paying attention the second he had heard the tone of voice the other was using, he’d heard it directed at himself often enough to know that nothing that was about to leave the other’s mouth was something of value. Despite Macaque’s interjection, Mei was continuing on, seemingly also ignoring him as she proceeded in her angry rant;

“-and his stupid snake hair too! Who does he think he is, Medusa?? The next time I see him I swear I’m gonna-”

Mei’s next threat was lost on Wukong’s ears, because he suddenly realized that Macaque had stopped talking. Old instincts of ‘If someone suddenly goes quiet, it is because they Have Been Kidnapped’ reactivating in his brain, Wukong took a quick glance backwards, just to ensure that there wasn’t a new problem being plopped onto his plate. And then he quickly did a double take, looking back again.

The others hadn’t noticed (outside from MK, who had raised an eye brow at Wukong’s actions and had also turned around to see what his mentor was looking at), but Macaque had seemingly frozen in place.

He was posed in a sassy way- the usual way he looked when he was speaking the same sort of cocky nonsense that he had been talking about earlier, but his mouth wasn’t moving, instead stuck in a slightly tense smirk. One of his eyes was closed, and the other very adamantly avoided eye contact as soon as Wukong initiated it. His left foot was lifted up midstep. Wukong couldn’t help but think that it must be fairly hard to keep himself balanced like that.

Wukong stopped walking. The others stopped too, looking at him in confusion, before following MK’s lead in glancing back at what the Monkey King was staring at.

“Uh.” Wukong said, “You alright?”

Macaque didn’t answer. MK walked over and poked him.

…And then poked him again.

Macaque unfroze, his step finally following through, his position readjusting to something that was probably supposed to be casual but instead ended up coming off as extremely forced.

“I’m fine,” He said, “Just… heard something.”

“Care to share with the rest of us?” Pigsy crossed his arms over his chest, looking unimpressed. Macaque gave a noncommittal shrug in response.

“Wasn’t that interesting.” He mumbled, “Look, can we just keep moving? We don’t have all day, y'know.”

With a hum, Wukong turned back around and started walking again. After a moment, he heard the others start moving as well. Still though, even as he chose to drop it for now, Wukong couldn’t help but silently note the incident in the back of his mind.

~

MK dodged under another swing intended to knock him straight into next Tuesday, trying his best to tune out the aggravating villainous laughter from his opponent. Seriously, this was getting insanely annoying. How many more times was he gonna have to fight this guy? Five more times? A dozen?

As the mere idea of fighting this guy even more times sunk into him, MK could sense his whole body glitch, his monkey tail briefly thrashing. MK winced, leaping back out of range to give himself a moment to breathe, settling himself down, before using the brief moment of reprieve to hit the side of the comm device on his ear.

“Hey, Macaque? Could really use a shadow portal out of here right now!”

There was no response. Actually, now that MK thought about it, he hadn’t seen Macaque since the moment this battle started.

As he did a backflip to avoid a hit to the face, he scanned the battlefield. Last he remembered, Macaque had been-

Oh you had to be fucking kidding.

In the last place where he had seen the Six Eared Macaque, there stood a shittily drawn cardboard cutout of that very shadow monkey in his place. How long had that been there?

…How hadn’t he noticed it?

Distracted by the sheer absurdity of what he was seeing, MK, unfortunately, forgot to pay attention to the person right in front of him, getting whacked in the chest and propelled into the side of the nearby rocky cliff-face. MK let out a wheezing breath as the wind got knocked out of him-

And suddenly he was falling backwards through solid rock, brief panic overtaking him before the purple tinge in his vision clued him in. Here was the shadow portal he had asked for, even if it was a little bit late.

He landed smack on his back in the inside of the truck, staring up at the ceiling.

After a second, MK rolled over, pushing himself up with a groan.

“Didn’t go well, I take it?”

MK looked up at the sound of Macaque’s voice, finding the shadow monkey sitting there in the passenger seat, his body slightly turned to look back at him. MK frowned at him, making it incredibly clear how displeased he was.

“Why did you bail out?” MK asked, “We could’ve used your help back there.”

“Eh, it seemed like you guys had it handled.” Macaque said, before wincing, one hand going up to his ear, where his comm rested. “Ugh, you guys sure do like to yell into these things…”

Before MK could even voice another protest, Macaque snapped his fingers- and suddenly MK was buried underneath the weight of his friends.

~

“Okay.” Wukong said, staring pointedly at the monkey sitting across from him at the campfire. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but it’s becoming increasingly obvious that this is developing into a much more serious problem.”

He hadn’t realized it during that first incident, spaced out enough that he hadn’t truly noticed what had triggered Macaque’s reaction. But after MK’s recount, and after the five other times Macaque had suddenly froze up or bailed out on them, the issue had become rather obvious.

Macaque, for his part, seemed rather unbothered, sitting in the same relaxed position he’d been in before. Well, that is, except for his quick glance towards the rest of the group, who were huddled together in their sleeping bags. Macaque’s ear twitched, checking if they were all asleep, most likely. They were, of course. Wukong had ensured that, before he had begun this conversation.

After a moment, Macaque let out a long sigh.

“What problem?” He said, “I haven’t noticed any problem, other than your poor leadership skills.”

“One, ouch. I’m working on that.” Wukong held up a finger, and then held up another one, “Two. Speaking of working on things, you remember Spider Queen right?”

“Yeah. Kinda hard to forget that whole New Year’s. It was far louder than usual.”

Of course that’s what he remembered about it.

“Well,” Wukong continued, “MK… was scared of spiders. Still is, I think. Anyways, he worked through that, and he managed to fight her off just fine.”

“I don’t see what this has to do with me.” Oh, he absolutely knew exactly what it had to do with him, if the way he was sinking down in his foldable chair was any indication. If this wasn’t such a serious issue, Wukong would probably be smirking devilishly at him.

“I’m talking about your fear of snakes.” Ah, there was the more nervous reaction Wukong had been waiting on, Macaque’s fur bristling as he glanced over at the others again, before proceeding to stubbornly avoid eye contact with Wukong, who rolled his eyes. “It’s seriously starting to become a problem, man. MK was right, I don’t want to admit it, but we maybe could’ve used some of your help in that last battle.”

“You’re Sun Wukong, I’m sure you had things handled.”

“Aw, is that praise for me I hear? That’s rare coming from you.”

“Wh- no!” Macaque hissed, “Just- I could easily beat that guy, so clearly you- you probably handled yourself just fine.”

“Hm.” Wukong leaned forwards, resting his head on his hands. “And if you think you could ‘easily’ beat that dude, then why haven’t you?”

“Because I know you guys had it handled.”

“You can’t just keep using the same excuse over and over again.”

“Yes I can.” Stubborn, as usual, Macaque wasn’t the same guy who easily gave in to Wukong anymore. Wukong let out a breath, willing himself not to snap in frustration. That wouldn’t get either of them anywhere.

…That’s what Sandy had said at least.

“Look.” Wukong said, “I’m not going to bring it up to the others. But-”

“Are you about to blackmail me-”

“-if you keep bailing out on us-”

“-holy shit, you really are blackmailing me.”

“-I will stage an intervention. With everyone this time.” Wukong crossed his arms, “Trust me. They’re very effective.”

Macaque didn’t respond, other than a look of disbelief. Wukong at least expected him to respond with some comment about how Wukong must’ve experienced an intervention himself in order to know that, but instead the other monkey remained silent. After several moments passed, Wukong slowly raised an eyebrow.

“…Macaque?”

“The Monkey King is blackmailing me.”

Wukong let out a tired sigh worthy of his over a millenia of life.

~

“Alright, that’s it.”

MK looked up from where he had been watching Pigsy work on bandaging his arm just in time to see Wukong tackle Macaque to the ground. Macaque let out a screech as he went down, drawing the attention of the rest of the group as well.

“I tried to do this the nice way!” Wukong yelled, as he struggled to keep Macaque still, a feat made slightly difficult by how the other kept trying to turn into shadows. “But nooooo!! You just have to make things difficult! So guess what!”

“No!”

“That’s right, it’s intervention time!” Wukong seemed to finally get a good grip on Macaque, even though the other was clearly still struggling, he wasn’t getting anywhere anytime soon. “So, folks, I’m sure you’ve all been wondering-”

“Wukong, don’t-”

“-why has our little shadowy friend been bailing out of every fight?” Wukong ignored Macaque’s protests, instead turning to his audience. “Does anyone have any guesses?”

Truthfully, no. MK hadn’t even really given it that much thought. Bailing out on a fight purely for his own amusement had seemed like a Macaque move at the time… but the more Macaque struggled trying to get out of Wukong’s grip, and the more MK thought about the few times him and Macaque had actually been on the same side in a fight, the more that started to seem… inaccurate. Huh.

“No guesses? Huh. I thought at least one of you would’ve at least come up with something.” Wukong muttered, before continuing, “Well, the answer just happens to be that-”

“I cannot believe you’ve actually stooped to blackmail-”

“-Macaque here, is afraid of snakes.”

Dead silence. Macaque stopped struggling, instead pressing his face into the floor and remaining completely still. After a few seconds, Wukong got off of him, wrapping his tail around him as Macaque started to sink into the shadows of the floor, and lifted him up. Macaque stubbornly avoided eye contact with everybody.

“So.” Wukong said, gesturing at Macaque with his hands, “Any suggestions?”

Mei raised her hand, before seemingly remembering that she didn’t need to, and instead blurted out one simple statement;

“Blindfold.”

Wukong snapped his finger and pointed at her like she was a genius… for about a second, before he shook his head.

“We tried that way back when, but the noise they make creeps him out, so…” Wukong shrugged in a ‘what can ya do’ kind of way. Macaque used the fact that his legs were somewhat free to kick Wukong in the shin. Wukong himself didn’t even acknowledge it, though his eye twitched in a way that indicated he was ever so slightly annoyed. “Any other suggestions?”

Silence. Again.

…Something suddenly struck in the back of MK’s mind.

“…This might be crazy, but-” MK said, “Is it possible to put glamours on other people?”

~

Wukong watched with true sight as Macaque landed a solid kick into the Nine Headed Demon’s face, before letting out a sigh.

“…Could someone explain to me again why we chose to glamour him to look like me?”

MK skidded into place beside him, taking a brief break from battle.

“Something about wanting to punch your face overpowering his knowledge that underneath it is snakes.” He said. Wukong hummed.

“Remind me later when all of this is over to swap out his shampoo with blonde hair dye.”

“Will do.”

[akirenhell]

When my God sits in the back of the limousine or whatever that song said-

[unaturalhistory]

My albums selection for the next week , open your ears:

Harvestman – Triptych Part Two

Nile – The Underworld Awaits Us All

Puce Mary – The Drought

The The – Ensoulment

Gysi / Gerber / Hollinger – Die Hand

Nine Inch Nails – Things Falling Apart

Laibach – Nova Akropola

Malaria! – Emotion

Xordox – Neospection

The Legendary Pink Dots - Live in Kontich 1986

[kevyeen]

I think I've found out the recipe to a good cop show:

One stoic but very caring captain and/or supervisor

Buddy cops; usually two guys from different backgrounds who have a strong bromance

A wayward genius who is kind of insane (can be one of the buddy cops or a different character)

Probably legal (read: illegal) outsider asset

Badass women (thread carefully because you might make a 1D male gaze baddie; you don't want that, no one wants that)

Comic relief who is actually very smart and useful

Some gay shit going on with the characters

Bonus: give everyone trauma because that's always fun (parental issues are greatly encouraged)

[blazingstaro]

✨DA-DA-DA-DAAAAAAAAAA ✨ YOU GOT THE MASTER— I mean YOU GOT GALAXIA! WOW!

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Kirby franchise and all respective franchise characters are copyright of Hal Labs & Nintendo Thanks to @starlightfyre for helping with this mini-series! DotS and all pertaining concepts & characters (unless otherwise stated) belong to me

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[karinyosa]

can't believe i just got this but i just realized the reason the nine core lumon principles are written on the whip ends and the people dressed as the tempers are the (presumably) sexual subjects of the whip is because you're supposed to use the nine lumon core principles to "tame" the four tempers in the vein of kier. which makes me think like... how does the workplace use each principle to exert control over the severed workers when each of their various tempers begins acting up? like i need an itemized list or something

[jimmyspades]

[t3-art]

so... clangen. amiright? 😸